the waiting game
by Nygmatech
Summary: Go on, then, keep pretending. Give him the courage he needs to put a knife in his own throat. House/Wilson


the waiting game

He sits in your empty office, telling himself that he cares and wishing desperately that he didn't.

But that's alright. You don't mind. You can't see him at it, anyways.

He traces the grooves and scratches in your desk with his long fingers and fleeting surgeon's hands; he can identify each one. Not that he'd admit it, of course. But you're smart. You can figure that out on your own.

You don't see the grim expression setting his thin lips into a line, and you most certainly don't see the cleverly disguised hurt in his eyes.

"Wilson," he says, and you do not respond. "Wilson," he murmurs, and the defeat in his voice might have been heartbreaking had you heard it.

* * *

><p>You are not there to pay for his lunch as he pretends he forgot his money. You do not sit with him because no one else will. You do not make smalltalk over the fifteen dollars of wasted food about Cuddy and House's patients and exactly what he thinks about Chase's accent and Thirteen's flings and Foreman's skin.<p>

You are not there to notice him setting an extra plate of salad down in front of the opposite chair. You do not see how he clears away both plates, both uneaten, at the end of his lunch break. You do not chastise him on buying lunch for you. You do not think as you do not thank him, that perhaps you like buying him lunch quite alright. You do not assume that he does not have to return the favour.

* * *

><p>He has a suspected cancer patient and the rest of his team does not miss a thing when he calls for your name mistakenly.<p>

"Call oncology to confirm. Get Wil-the new Wilson," he corrects himself flawlessly, but the slip-up is still there.

The duckings look at eachother and scurry off before they can get caught.

The new Head of Oncology passes it off as leukaemia. The patient does not have leukaemia. You would have caught the mistake. There is blood on your hands already, and you don't even know it yet.

* * *

><p>You are not there to find him when he overdoses on Vicodin and passes out on the scratched up old desk in your (former) office.<p>

You are not there when Cutner is still cursing you out a week later. You do not know that it takes two days to bring House out of his coma, nor that it was Thirteen who tried for five minutes straight to get his heart up and running again, refusing to give up until she could find a pulse.

You killed him, and honestly could care less. How could you? You weren't there, after all.

* * *

><p>"I love you," he says, mind still hazy and vision even moreso.<p>

Taub looks up from his clipboard in decided disinterest.

"Wilson?" he groans, throat scratchy, and attempts to sit up.

"You're delusional," Taub informs him, and pushes him back onto the stiff sheets of the cold hospital bed.

Ultimately, you have become a monster. You are learning cruelty without realising it, and loving every moment of it with every moment you spend away from him.

* * *

><p>You are not there through the following months of his recovery to saw his cane halfway through in good humour or to write him a Vicodin prescription in secret when the withdrawls are getting too much. You are not there to provide the seemingly random bits of conversation he needs to spark just the right idea so his patient may live, ten seconds before the expiration date is set.<p>

House's case fatality rate rises to forty per-cent, and Cuddy locks herself in her office and cries.

* * *

><p>He lies on one of the autopsy tables in the pit, staring up at the ceiling of this empty chamber of secrets kept-and runs through the procedure in his head, how the steel might feel biting through his skin so it may be pulled apart like an old coat hung up to dry and ruined in the sun, so that it may be recycles for buttons, for its fine satin lining.<p>

He wonders how the view might be from the unresponsive eyes of a corpse.

* * *

><p>When you get home, there are no less than five messages from Cuddy on your answering machine, each one all but begging you to come back.<p>

More alarmed than you would like to admit, you assure yourself that everything is alright, it's probably just House again doing something stupid, nothing you should worry yourself with. Really.

You promise yourself to call her back in the morning, and try not to worry for the rest of the night.

You wouldn't want to concern yourself with him, anyways. You've convinced yourself by now that he can do quite fine without you.

* * *

><p>"Welcome back," he says, looks short and voice dripping with sarcasm and arsenic. Any normal person might have been offended, but you just look over at him and nod. He's only hiding because he's afraid of what might happen if he doesn't.<p>

The look in his eyes strikes you dead, and you avoid his face as studiously as you can, pulling useless item after item out of the box on the desk in your (once again) office.

"Wilson," he says, and as you raise your head you're suddenly all too aware of how close he's leaned over the desk and how God, you've missed him-

He tastes like Vicodin and cheap vodka and everything you've convinced yourself you'd be better without.

And nothing changes, because if there's one thing you've learnt from House, it's that nothing ever will.


End file.
